Layer 1 blockchain startup Shardeum has raised $18.2 million (approximately Rs 150 crore) in its first round of seed funding, almost eight months after launch. More than 50 investors participated in the round, including Spartan Group, Big Brain Holdings, Jane Street and Foresight Ventures, according to a company announcement. Co-founded by Nischal Shetty, founder of Indian stock exchange WazirX, and Omar Syed, blockchain architect, Shardeum is a proof-of-stake blockchain platform that uses dynamic state partitioning technology to seek efficiency gains.
According to the company, it is now valued at around $200 million (around Rs. 1 crore). Many influential angel investors including Balaji Srinivasan, Mayur Gupta, Michael Montero, Pankaj Gupta, Harsh Rajat, Nakul Gupta, Ajeet Khurana, Ravi Adusumalli also participated in the round.
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The proceeds will be used to fuel the company’s marketing efforts as well as grow the development team to further enhance the shared technology and ecosystem development of Shardeum, the company said. In a press release.
Over the next year, Shardeum will actively host hackathons in India and the United States and provide a platform that incentivizes developers to build and grow the Shardeum ecosystem.
As Shardeum is a shared blockchain based on an Ethereum virtual machine, anything that runs on Ethereum can run on Shardeum. The company (Shardeum Foundation) is based in Geneva, Switzerland. The startup has targeted a beta launch by the end of 2022 with a full launch expected to take place in the first quarter of 2023. Shardeum also plans to hold a public token sale later.
In case you were wondering what makes a sharded blockchain network different from a normal one, sharding helps break the blockchain infrastructure into smaller pieces to try to scale the network. This helps increase block space for more transactions and reduces gas fees. Shardeum’s architecture aims to address user experience issues faced by both users and developers of existing sharded blockchains.
Shardeum is just one of many new layer 1 blockchains that have recently raised funds. Others include Aptos, Sui, and Sei Labs.